Introduction: Nerf - Rebelle PDW

As you may have seen, Nerf has come out with a series of blasters with young girls in mind. Naturally, a lot of male nerfers, myself included, hopped on 'em anyway and found they are actually pretty neat. Not only are they actually quite good, but they can look badass if you recolor them.

But I noticed one in particular: the Secret Shot. It looks like a little handbag at first, but pull a lever and it springs open into a compact and powerful repeating blaster.

Just one problem, though; nobody has macho'd it up yet. This could not stand.

This isn't really a tutorial or anything. As usual, I'm never sure these days if any of the jury-rigged junk I make will actually work, so I don't really document any of my processes.

Step 1: Getting to Know the Secret Shot

I researched it a little ahead of time, but it turns out this is a tough little blaster. You wouldn't think so from the tiny draw distance of the priming handle, but it can actually compete with some bigger single-shooters. I'm not sure if there's any mods I could do to it, which is a good thing; the pivot between the body and shoulder stock had springs that were really hard to put back in.

Step 2: Getting Ready to Paint

It's really good-looking in a non-macho way. So, like a monster, I had to go and ruin it. Just a semi-gloss gray as an undercoat.

Step 3: Ruining the Paint

I sponged on some black acrylic and masked it for some stripes. I thought it'd be cool to do it in a fading warm-colored pattern like I did for the Artillery Maverick. But I didn't prime it first, so the paint started coming off in chunks as I removed the tape. I pretty much gave up when even the tiniest, most modest little applications ripped off huge pieces.

...eh, it was a lame idea, anyway.

Step 4: Go With Something Else

I already planned from the start to add a logo made from decal paper. I decided to go with Toha Heavy Industries from Tsutomu Nihei's Biomega/BLAME stories; the blaster is compact, squared, and surprisingly powerful like the weapons his protagonists use, so it seemed like a good choice.

It still looked too plain and way too dark, and I still wanted stripes. Instead of screwing with the tape some more, I cut out some plain decal paper and ran it along some features. They don't have the best joints or the most consistent widths, but it was good enough. I also added some labels to the various handles and buttons, like you might see on a real gun.

With such a dark gun, I decided to leave the tip orange. Need to take some kind of steps in case a grumpy cop doesn't like those kids in the park playing with those stupid toy guns.

EDIT: Now, by popular demand, decals! That image file should include everything except for the stripes (which were cut by hand), plus a couple others. If you feel inspired to make alterations or brand new text, I used Agency FB Condensed (bold for the info label, plain for everything else) Just print at 100% on label paper.

Step 5: Final Thoughts

It came out different than what I imagined, but still not bad. I mostly made it because nobody else seemed to yet, so anything would've been good.

I'm not sure I'd really like to use it still. I don't have a problem with the size like other people have, but I keep getting misfires like I do with the Rough Cut. That's probably operator error though; it's still a neat little blaster.